(10-14-2017, 11:52 PM)lincmercguy Wrote: The previous owners of our house were not big on landscaping. It's just prairie grass out here, but it goes up to the foundation around most of the house. I'm looking at adding border blocks like the link below. Between the block row and house, I'd put a weed barrier and smaller river (or other style) rock. On one side of the house, the ground has a pretty good slope to it. How much slope will this type of setup tolerate? Or do I need to build some tiered setup instead?
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Insignia-Tan-St...in/3393434
We have almost identical to your plans. When we moved in the previous owner had plantings: flowers, bushes and a couple of small trees up to the almost level ground of the foundation. The basement was always damp along the wall.
I wanted to finish the basement so I:
1. removed all plants and increased slope to at least 1 foot over the 5' of perimeter space I allocated.
2. I dug a 8" sloping drainage gully along the outside perimeter of the 5' boundary leading to the lowest spot on my property (french drain)
3. I placed 2 layers of reinforced plastic over the boundary area including the french drain (edit: I used reinforced 6 mil plastic. I see they now have reinforced 8 mil. I would have used that if I had known it existed- materials are the cheapest part) . I ran the edges of the plastic up about 8" of the foundation wall and left slack in the french drain area to insure it would go under the border blocks
4. Placed my border stone to hold the edge
5. backfilled with smooth 2"-3" river rock
Wife and I confined ourselves to using large urns and fabricated flower boxes to add foliage, no puncture in the plastic.
No moisture since. Survived the rains from the flood of '93 and a freak rain of 3" in an hour and a half. Also survived a clogged gutter that dumped all the rain from a 75'x25' roof in one location.
Made cleaning area near our a house a "breeze" (used corded leaf blower to just blow debris away, the rocks stayed put)
That was in '89. Three years ago we had a need to move some rock to add some conduit. The top layer of plastic was intact but brittle. The bottom layer looked like it did when I put it down.
Another advantage was last year when we re-roofed we dispensed with gutters for almost a year. It was great, no cleaning or anything. We did install gutters as we prepared to sell as our realtor said regardless of its efficacy no one in Iowa would believe us or even look at a house without gutters.
